Romney would be latest in long tradition of misusing NASA for political gain.

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's camp yesterday released a policy statement on America's space program. The statement doesn't really lay out any concrete details on what Romney's plans for NASA would be if he is elected, other than to say that President Obama "has failed to deliver a coherent policy for human space exploration and space security" and that Romney would do it way better. Unfortunately, this merely adds Romney to the end of a long line of politicians stretching back to the 1970s who want to use NASA as political capital rather than actually advance America's space program, confounding an agency which does its best work when it is given a task and is then left alone to finish it.

From the space race to the Space Shuttle

Make no mistake: the "Space Race" of the late 1950s and 1960s was primarily a political and military exercise between the United States and the Soviet Union, though Kennedy's powerful rhetoric hit all the right notes to add a deeply human motivation to the endeavor—it's in our nature, he said, to be explorers, and if we don't get to the Moon first, then we will get there last. It's almost a foregone conclusion that his assassination just 14 months after his famous speech at Rice University helped ensure that NASA and the Moon would remain a national priority, if for no other reason than because his successor, the wily Lyndon B. Johnson, was one of the most skilled political operators Washington has ever known, and he knew that tampering with Kennedy's legacy would destroy his own chances for election in 1964.

But starting with Richard Nixon's first term in 1969, even as Project Apollo was sprinting to a wildly successful manned lunar landing, the meddling began. The final three landings of the program, Apollo 18, 19, and 20, were canceled during Nixon's terms and NASA's manned program was reprioritized toward the development of the the Space Transportation System, which would itself transform over the course of its development into the Space Shuttle Program.

The ostensible goal of Shuttle was to lower the cost of launching payloads into orbit by making the launch vehicle reusable and the launch process routine. Reduced costs were the order of the day; even though NASA's Saturn V rocket was (and remains) the most successful heavy lift vehicle ever created, plans to continue its use were scrapped in favor of the shuttle. In 1974, Nixon departed in disgrace and Gerald Ford took office. Faced with a nation in the midst of an energy crisis and a severe economic recession, his continued support of the more "efficient" shuttle program was a foregone conclusion.

Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter, was dealt a bad hand at the end of the 1970s. Carter is one of the few presidents in the last 50 years to not really care much about American's manned space program. Under his leadership—or more correctly, during his period of noninvolvement—NASA tested the prototype orbiter Enterprise.

Ronald Reagan dabbled heavily in NASA's course, proposing Space Station Freedom as the first permanently manned orbiting facility and also pushing for commercial involvement in space travel. In keeping with his plans of defeating the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union, Reagan also favored more military space activity, most famously in the form of the Strategic Defense Initiative program, popularly known as "Star Wars" for its descriptions of laser-equipped satellites zapping Soviet missiles out of the sky in mid-flight. SDI had no small amount of NASA involvement, with shuttles and other launch vehicles ferrying cargoes (some classified) into orbit.

NASA was diverted again by George H.W. Bush. By the late 1980s, with NASA still recovering from the loss of Challenger and having been confined to sending shuttles to low earth orbit for years, the first President Bush proposed that the struggling agency take on a new mandate—the Space Exploration Initiative. President Bush outlined plans to send humans back to the Moon for permanent settlement and on to other planets as part of a multi-decade, long-range commitment. NASA contractors were thrilled, but it seemed clear even at the time that the plan was far too ambitious to survive past Bush's presidency.

It was. President Clinton realigned NASA's directives again, trimming many of the SEI-outlined goals and pushing for construction to start on the International Space Station, a scaled-back version of the United States' solo space station plans of the 1980s which would rely partly on funding contributed by other countries for completion. President Clinton's plans for NASA included prioritizing robotic exploration; "flags and footprints" missions like the return to the Moon and a manned mission to Mars were shelved.

After his election in 2000, George W. Bush put forth the boldest direction change for NASA since the 1960s, calling for the creation of an entirely new set of rockets and spacecraft under the umbrella of Project Constellation. Bush's plan would have seen a tremendous revitalization of NASA's manned space flight efforts, but suffered from a tragic lack of funding; eventually, in 2009, the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee (informally known as the "Augustine Committee" after its chairman, Norman Augustine) concluded that Project Constellation could be modified in several ways to produce a viable and successful set of missions, but the most desirable path forward would require an increase in overall agency funding by $3 billion through 2014, and then increases of 2.4 percent for each year after that.

Unfortunately for Constellation, at that point George W. Bush was no longer the president. The program had the double-whammy of being both underfunded and not really doing much for the current president's legacy; the bulk of Constellation was summarily cancelled after a single launch of one of the technology demonstration vehicles. Worse, President Obama didn't come out of the starting gate as a fan of manned exploration at all: in one of his first statements on the matter, he expressed his desire to increase educational funding by siphoning dollars directly from NASA over a five-year period.

Realizing that such a defunding of NASA could be political suicide in space- and vote-heavy states like California and Florida, President Obama has shifted NASA's direction by half-adopting and half-ignoring the Augustine Committee's findings and pushing for more commercially driven, manned space flight initiatives, with NASA focusing on "big picture" items from the Committee's Flexible Path set of recommendations (like a manned asteroid rendezvous). President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

Space should always inspire us

That, really, is the key—"uninspiring" is a word that should never be used of a country's manned space program. NASA has of course done some very serious science during its existence, including placing an actual geologist on the Moon to study it firsthand, but the primary goal of NASA's lobbing astronauts into the heavens has always ultimately been political rather than scientific. The most important side effect of the manned program, though, has been the long tail of science and engineering interest it generated. Whether you love or hate his schtick, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson makes an insightful point when he observes that increased interest in all things scientific and futuristic tracked with the successes of Apollo and waned when the agency's direction began to drift.

Nothing—absolutely nothing—makes a kid's jaw drop like meeting an astronaut; kids build LEGO spaceships and plan to fly to the stars almost as a matter of course before their interest in science and math is beaten out of them by a stale educational system focused on rote memorization. All the educational funding in the world can't inspire someone to want to become an engineer like a video of someone standing on another world can. Diverting money from NASA to pay for textbooks is a shortsighted, stupid policy, which robs would-be engineers and mathematicians and scientists of the things which inspire them to become engineers and mathematicians and scientists in the first place.

NASA has historically been able to accomplish great things when the agency is given a direction and funding—and then left alone. The two most visible program successes NASA has had since its inception—Project Apollo's Moon landing and the creation of the Space Shuttle—were able to be completed largely because the sitting president didn't pay much attention to the agency. For many presidents, NASA is almost like an expensive toy that they can't resist poking, and unfortunately, poking the toy every four to eight years means that the toy can't get any work done. Romney's new space policy statement, which blasts President Obama's space policies without offering much in the way of concrete proposed action, is simply one more direction change waiting to happen. NASA will continue to flounder unless given a long-term plan that it can stick to.

Perhaps we need to do more work within the framework of international partnerships. Not because we necessarily need the assistance, but because once a deal has been struck with our allies it is harder for it to get cancelled.

As for this quote: "The statement doesn't really lay out any concrete details on what Romney's plans for NASA would be if he is elected"I dare say you could replace the statement with any of Romney's statements and the word "NASA" with any other word and it would still be true. E.g. he's going to repeal the health care law, except the parts he isn't, and then he's going to replace the rest with something he hasn't come up with yet. Taxes are going to be cut for everyone, balanced by ending loopholes that magically will not increase the tax burden of people who currently benefit from those loopholes. Our policy in Afghanistan is going to be better, even though it will be more or less the same. Etc etc. I honestly don't feel I know anything he is going to do if elected, except pander to the right.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

If ever the adage "aim for the moon, for if you miss you surely land among the stars" applied, it would be here.

"Hey kids, John Motherfucking Smith went to that awesome planet with the rings! You know the difference between him at your age and you? NOTHING."

Perhaps we need to do more work within the framework of international partnerships. Not because we necessarily need the assistance, but because once a deal has been struck with our allies it is harder for it to get cancelled.

Nothing compares to the sense of excitement and wonder I had as a child growing up in the 1960's, with the first Moon landing on my 5th birthday.

As fantastic as the various unmanned probes are and the solid science we've accomplished through them, nothing will ever beat having a living, breathing person on site, able to make instant decisions, make necessary repairs and to "go see what's over that hill/in that crater/under that rock."

Dangerous? Hell, yeah.

Expensive? Unbelievably so.

Worth it? No question. None. Forget the science, forget the technology spin-offs, just for the moment. Think about the effect on the sense of wonder and excitement for untold generations to come if we make the choice to go out there ourselves. When any society ceases to dream and push borders, both physical and mental, that's when it's in serious trouble.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

If ever the adage "aim for the moon, for if you miss you surely land among the stars" applied, it would be here.

"Hey kids, John Motherfucking Smith went to that awesome planet with the rings! You know the difference between him at your age and you? NOTHING."

"Hey kids, they put a robot on Mars! Here's a jpg!"

Look im not saying we cant try to do both, but still its not like realistic goals arent a good thing.

smartguy05 wrote:

Z1ggy wrote:

Quote:

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

If ever the adage "aim for the moon, for if you miss you surely land among the stars" applied, it would be here.

"Hey kids, John Motherfucking Smith went to that awesome planet with the rings! You know the difference between him at your age and you? NOTHING."

"Hey kids, they put a robot on Mars! Here's a jpg!"

The universe is very big and very empty. You really don't wanna miss the moon, as you will probably never reach the stars.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

Making the challenge of going to the Moon before the end of the 1960's, when we had literally just sent one person up for a short suborbital hop 3 weeks before, THAT was utterly unrealistic. And utterly wonderful. We need wild, crazy goals. We do our best stuff when we're pushing ourselves beyond what we think our limits are.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

Yes, lets put a man on Saturn!!!!

Well, it is against party doctrine to support putting a man on Uranus.

The manned spaceflight program started out as a political football; that's the only reason it exists in the first place. If you want to do science, you send unmanned systems (Clementine and LRO have given us more data about the moon than the Apollo missions, and the Mars exploration program has yielded spectacular results).

If we want to return to the glory days of Apollo, then we need to build a manned spaceflight infrastructure, and infrastructure isn't inspiring. Commercial Crew may not be as sexy or "visionary" as SLS, but it's vital for moving manned spaceflight forward. And given Commercial Crew's relatively modest price tags, it's the only way we're going to get people in orbit for a while.

Regardless of funding, why would NASA pour money into designing a NEW rocket-based space capsule after the decommissioning of the Space Shuttle program instead of simply re-using a previously tried and true platform (such as the ones that delivered Astronauts to the Moon)?

I concur with the Author that the job of NASA is to inspire, unfortunately after growing up watching Astronauts land their shuttle at a predicted destination and walk to waiting transport like travelers at an airport, the process of parachuting to the ground in some random field in Kazakhstan seems amateurish and a regression in progress. Nor is it inspiring to watch our Astronauts commute to work on the Space Station via Russia.

Whether is it Obama or Romney this November, one might argue that it is up to NASA to draft an inspiring long term plan around which a future Chief Executive can sell to Congress and the American people; the currently mediocre space vehicles in development only inspire this taxpayer to vote NO to any NASA budget increase.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

I'm sure that any aggressive plans he put in place would just get constant air time of Faux News. "The economy is bad and he's talking about putting people in space!" So chalk that up to the economic and political climate and vitriol.

Whether is it Obama or Romney this November, one might argue that it is up to NASA to draft an inspiring long term plan around which a future Chief Executive can sell to Congress and the American people; the currently mediocre space vehicles in development only inspire this taxpayer to vote NO to any NASA budget increase.

That's the thing the science-firsters never realize. The things that yield the biggest science bang for the buck often don't inspire the average voter, who ultimately ends up deciding how many bucks NASA is going to get.

...the currently mediocre space vehicles in development only inspire this taxpayer to vote NO to any NASA budget increase.

So you're going to vote for Romney purely based on NASA's perceived lack of vision (which is mainly due to a lack of funding, let's be honest)? Seems like an odd way to choose who to vote for, but hey, at least you're more informed than most I guess.

Regardless of funding, why would NASA pour money into designing a NEW rocket-based space capsule after the decommissioning of the Space Shuttle program instead of simply re-using a previously tried and true platform (such as the ones that delivered Astronauts to the Moon)?

it's corporate welfare for dinosaur defense/aerospace contractors.

that's almost always the reason behind all the stuff that makes you say "what a pointless waste of money"

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

I'm sure that any aggressive plans he put in place would just get constant air time of Faux News. "The economy is bad and he's talking about putting people in space!" So chalk that up to the economic and political climate and vitriol.

Unlike all the other presidents who never had an opposition party? It's not like the Apollo project had massive popular support either.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

I agree with this, while Curiosity wasn't a fully government funded backed program, it is very inspiring. It has renewed my interest for certain. Landing any kind of probe that has highly detailed feedback on another planet is largely inspiring, and I hope for the future privatization of NASA so that we can see more of these kinds of missions.

Regardless of funding, why would NASA pour money into designing a NEW rocket-based space capsule after the decommissioning of the Space Shuttle program instead of simply re-using a previously tried and true platform (such as the ones that delivered Astronauts to the Moon)?

All the manufacturing base for the moon rockets is gone. The tooling, machinery, parts, and experts who worked on them are in one way or another out of commission and not coming back with the flick of a switch (especially the experts who have expired). We would basically need to go through the development of the Apollo program all over again anyway, might as well start with modern technology.

Quote:

Whether is it Obama or Romney this November, one might argue that it is up to NASA to draft an inspiring long term plan around which a future Chief Executive can sell to Congress and the American people; the currently mediocre space vehicles in development only inspire this taxpayer to vote NO to any NASA budget increase.

And yet that budget does more than just let people putter around on the moon for a few minutes. It gives us magnificent space telescopes that answer fundamental questions about the origin and ultimate fate of the Universe. It lets us keep a running tally of Earth-like planets around other stars. It sends robotic probes screaming through the atmosphere of Titan, and flying through the majestic rings of Saturn. It sends remote science laboratories scaling up the mountains of Mars. It gives us the satellites that let us monitor hurricanes, typhoons, and wildfires, to keep you from getting lost on the road, and figure out how the gravity of our planet is changing under our feet.

If you can't see the value of NASA's unmanned work, the problem is not with NASA's inability to go to the moon. It's your own brick-like lack of imagination. And if you cast a vote to chop NASA's already pathetic budget while they're busy bringing you all this crucial and deep science that helps explain who we are, what we're doing, and where we're going? It makes THIS taxpayer wonder how hard it would be to find your house and give it a fresh, eggy coating. If you're that worried about the value if your money, realize that we get far more bang for our buck by doing hard science and answering tough questions without worrying about a repeat performance of Apollo 13.

Nothing compares to the sense of excitement and wonder I had as a child growing up in the 1960's, with the first Moon landing on my 5th birthday.

As fantastic as the various unmanned probes are and the solid science we've accomplished through them, nothing will ever beat having a living, breathing person on site, able to make instant decisions, make necessary repairs and to "go see what's over that hill/in that crater/under that rock."

Dangerous? Hell, yeah.

Expensive? Unbelievably so.

Worth it? No question. None. Forget the science, forget the technology spin-offs, just for the moment. Think about the effect on the sense of wonder and excitement for untold generations to come if we make the choice to go out there ourselves. When any society ceases to dream and push borders, both physical and mental, that's when it's in serious trouble.

Not only that, but astronauts used to be freaking rockstars! What a drastic shift it would make for young people of today to switch from looking up to people like Lady GaGa to actual intelligent human beings, most of which have scientific degrees of some sort (I don't think the pilots do). I think it would spark a science revolution in our schools and help us get out of this education slump we have here in the US.

If you ask me, the main goal of NASA should become monitoring climate change. Use private firms for heavy lifting. Satellite capability is probably one of the most important areas in geopolitical terms.

The problem at the core of the space debate is the goal. There are two goals to aim for - understand space and settle space - and they push in different directions. Right now the community is pushing to understand space and it's losing the support of the voting public.

From the public's point of view, understanding space is just not that inspiring. The Hubble gave them great pictures but how much better will the pictures get, from the point of view of the public, with a multi-billion dollar investment in another picture taking satellite? We've got another rover on Mars. Again, from the public's point of view, this makes the third rover and the pictures still look like a desert that they drive through at top speed because there's nothing to see. The voting public is beginning to view big budget understanding space projects like big budget understanding physics projects. Remember that America didn't care about building a collider to find the Higgs Boson.

What inspires non-scientists is living things. The two biggest Mars stories in my life were the report that Viking found life on Mars and the report that a Martian meteorite contained fossils of microbial life. I still remember the names Laika and Ham (along with Gagarin, Shepard, and Glenn) but I can't pull the name of our satellite that went up after Sputnik. If you want to inspire the public, then boldly go where no man (or woman or even dog or chimp) has gone before. Saturn would be great but I'd settle for Mars or Ceres.

I watched the moon landing as a teenager (still have some screen shots from a home made camera rig for the event) and for a decade thought of becoming an astronaut as a profession.

Nevertheless, I think NASA lost direction for reasons of simple physics: going to Mars is WAY harder than going to the Moon, and in terms of grandstanding nothing quite has the mythic stature of mankind's first step on another world. So, when it became obvious that sending Apollos to the moon is repetitious and has no-where near the bang for the buck, it stopped. The orbital labs have been yeoman if largely obscure but probably kept the military happy, and the robot missions (including Hubble) have really been what kept NASA alive in the public view. Hence NASA as it has been for the last 40 years.

The private enterprise uses of space, whether it be everyday stuff like geosync TV (there is an incredible amount of stuff up there), or public stuff repurposed for private like GPS/GLONASS/etc, or even the new interesting ideas like robotic asteroid ining, those are really where space is going. I don't see NASA ever getting us to Mars, or even back to the Moon. Depending on government agencies rarely works well. NASA's birth was a rare exception, but expecting it to stay exceptional is wrong.

As to whether Obama or Romney either of them have much say in the matter, I doubt it. The momentum seems switching to private enterprise, with some mix of government funding (both miliatray and pork-barrel), and how that evolves will redefine NASA. Any engineer looking to make a career in space is probably already not looking at NASA, and the inspiring videos are as much the launch of SpaceX as they are of Mars. It would be great to see this transition to a good application of public funds to projects including private risk (although of course, private risk always manoeuvers to shift the risk back onto the public purse).

So long as space remains uncommercial, it will be an uncomfortable and messy alliance. Look at comsats which are totally commercial: NASA does nothing there, and they go up like clockwork. If we do really figure out how to mine asteroids with robots, NASA won't need to do that either. What NASA does will be the non-profit, the speculative, the science. Good luck with keeping politicians focussed on that.

I think NASA does great work. I used to work there. I think the constant kneecapping of the projects is completely true. I've mentioned in other space stories that while I was there I saw the mission direction get turned 180 degrees from where it was (fundamental science to working models required) and back again, both near the end of research cycles effectively killing years of effort (and a little bit of everyone's soul). If they had been left alone for a few more years in both cases, they probably would have developed something stellar. Instead they developed another half-baked research report that will hide in the government archives.

NASA more so than other agencies needs a 5-10 year funding stream that can't be de-obligated without a much higher vote of congress than normal.

...the currently mediocre space vehicles in development only inspire this taxpayer to vote NO to any NASA budget increase.

So you're going to vote for Romney purely based on NASA's perceived lack of vision (which is mainly due to a lack of funding, let's be honest)? Seems like an odd way to choose who to vote for, but hey, at least you're more informed than most I guess.

I was actually arguing that the choice of President is irrelevant to the NASA mission, and Congress determines that NASA funding so those interested should lobby their Representatives in order to achieve change.

President Obama's plans for NASA are realistic, but largely uninspiring.

seriously? god forbid we have realistic goals. I understand we want to inspire people but pictures from curiosity can do that just as well as saying we plan on putting a man on saturn.(just pulled that outta my arse).

If you want to do science, you send unmanned systems (Clementine and LRO have given us more data about the moon than the Apollo missions, and the Mars exploration program has yielded spectacular results).

Except that unmanned systems can't collect the data that manned systems can. Or cover the same amount of area. Or easily collect large amounts of samples to bring back home for even more study.

The Apollo missions brought back tons of moon rocks. The Mars exploration program has given spectacular results, this is true. But there's a difference in analyzing scratches on the surface versus having an astronaut there with a pickaxe saying "Hey, that looks like ice" and checking it out, taking a sample, and stowing it in a container for further study in a terrestrial laboratory.

There are some things that will never work as a substitute for actually having someone on the ground checking things out, even though it may seem as a "wave the flag" moment.

On a related note, the first commercially contracted ISS resupply mission, conducted by SpaceX, is set to launch on October 7th. This would mark the restoration of U.S. cargo lifting capability since the retirement of the shuttle.

Robots are efficient, robots can get the job done, but ultimately the name of the game is human exploration, advancement and progress.

Fact is, America, and the world as a whole, is going to need a new outlet for our energies as human beings. New settlements on the moon, Mars and beyond will create that new drive, energy and economic growth that this country needs. Imagine the industries that will spring up to help supply new colonies and provide support to them. Imagine the new outlets for our creativity and advancement. We are getting there, lurching, slowly, painfully, but we are getting there.

At the risk of politicizing things too much, Bush's failure was that after he announced Constellation he essentially abandoned it. Without a cheerleader the funding would never arise. Obama's fault is that he really does not care about exploration and manned spaceflight.

There is currently a bill before the House to de-politicize NASA. It would give the administrator a 10 year term, similar to the FBI director, and would fund the agency on a five year budget cycle which is similar to the FBI and certain parts of the military who manage long-term operations. Both of these steps would go far in helping stabilize the agency.

My personal take is that I wish the political will had been there to keep STS for a few additional years. I would have preferred seeing the shuttles continue to fly through 2014-2015 at a rate of 2 - 4 per year. Contingency plans were in place and the option was there, but there was no political will to finance it.

Regardless of funding, why would NASA pour money into designing a NEW rocket-based space capsule after the decommissioning of the Space Shuttle program instead of simply re-using a previously tried and true platform (such as the ones that delivered Astronauts to the Moon)?

They are funding two capsules, Dragon and Orion, with different mission requirements. The Apollo capsule does not meet the 7 crew capacity to the Station, nor the long mission duration for asteroid missions.

Mujokan wrote:

If you ask me, the main goal of NASA should become monitoring climate change

They do, to the tune of $1.75 billion a year. See the Earth Science section (pages 24-101) of their current budget (I suggest right click and "save link as", its an 800 page document):

If you want inspiring goals, how about "expand human civilization"? I'm doing a conceptual design for a future space program, and that comes out as the top objective. There are others besides that, you can see the whole analysis here:

It's part of a Space Systems Engineering textbook, effectively "How to be a Rocket Scientist". Any program has to start with setting goals and design requirements, and that part of the book is an example of exactly how you do that.

Regardless of funding, why would NASA pour money into designing a NEW rocket-based space capsule after the decommissioning of the Space Shuttle program instead of simply re-using a previously tried and true platform (such as the ones that delivered Astronauts to the Moon)?

All the manufacturing base for the moon rockets is gone. The tooling, machinery, parts, and experts who worked on them are in one way or another out of commission and not coming back with the flick of a switch (especially the experts who have expired). We would basically need to go through the development of the Apollo program all over again anyway, might as well start with modern technology.

Quote:

Whether is it Obama or Romney this November, one might argue that it is up to NASA to draft an inspiring long term plan around which a future Chief Executive can sell to Congress and the American people; the currently mediocre space vehicles in development only inspire this taxpayer to vote NO to any NASA budget increase.

And yet that budget does more than just let people putter around on the moon for a few minutes. It gives us magnificent space telescopes that answer fundamental questions about the origin and ultimate fate of the Universe. It lets us keep a running tally of Earth-like planets around other stars. It sends robotic probes screaming through the atmosphere of Titan, and flying through the majestic rings of Saturn. It sends remote science laboratories scaling up the mountains of Mars. It gives us the satellites that let us monitor hurricanes, typhoons, and wildfires, to keep you from getting lost on the road, and figure out how the gravity of our planet is changing under our feet.

If you can't see the value of NASA's unmanned work, the problem is not with NASA's inability to go to the moon. It's your own brick-like lack of imagination. And if you cast a vote to chop NASA's already pathetic budget while they're busy bringing you all this crucial and deep science that helps explain who we are, what we're doing, and where we're going? It makes THIS taxpayer wonder how hard it would be to find your house and give it a fresh, eggy coating. If you're that worried about the value if your money, realize that we get far more bang for our buck by doing hard science and answering tough questions without worrying about a repeat performance of Apollo 13.

I am quite satisfied with NASA's unmanned work (Curiosity is awesome!!), but for manned work would rather send my share of the $20M+/head launch fee to a space visionary like Elon Musk of Tesla / SpaceX fame instead of Putin.

First, why isn't this labelled as a political op-ed? I have nothing against them, but I like it when they are labelled as such.

Any government agency is politicized. I see no reason why NASA is or should be any different. It is funded by the taxpayers, therefore its direction should be determined by the taxpayers. Trying to argue that your direction is better than theirs is sheer mental masturbation--it could be, but how does it matter?

This is why I support private extra-planet endeavours, and I appreciate that NASA is currently giving private companies the chance to push forward. Sooner or later NASA will be absorbed into the Air Force or Navy, or reduced to a grant-giving scientific agency. I am ok with this, as the private infrastructure is being developed now, and it will not obey the whims and neglect of the bean counters in Congress. Private industry gets things done.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.